A Place Beyond Meaning

There is nothing around you. Just a blank void. Just whiteness everywhere. There is no reason why you would be here, you just are. You hear no sound, and although you are standing on something, you cannot feel the ground. You hold a leather suitcase. It has the letter "J" messily engraved on the side of it. You do not know what is in the suitcase, or why it is in your hand in the first place. It is just there, and you accept that.

A building emerges out of thin air. It's a train station. A wispy voice in your ear says,'go to the station'. You have nothing better to do, so you start walking. With every step you take, you grip the suitcase tighter and tighter. Step by step, you make your way to the station.

The station is made out of brick, mortar, concrete and other materials. A small staircase leads up to the porch, which holds up a second level of the station with 4 white pillars, two on each side. Above the two green-painted doors hangs a sign that reads, 'a place beyond meaning'. Without hesitation, you open the left door, and walk in. As soon you enter, the door disappears.

For some reason, the inside of the building is significantly larger than the outside. It is one giant room with no walls and is on the verge of being pitch black. In the middle of the room is a cardboard box. It emits light, but does not illuminate any of the walls around it. The lid is open, showing there is nothing in the box. The same wispy voice from before enters your mind, and says, "Drop the suitcase, and get in the box." Agreeing, you drop the suitcase, which falls throught the floor into the void. Then, you walk towards the box, get in, and close the lid above you.

Instantly, you become weightless. You open the box, to see that your plummeting towards the ground at a tremendous speed. Up until this point, you have had no sense of emotion, whereas now you have woken up to the terror of being thousands of miles in the air headed straight for your doom. Below you, you see a parachute. You try to grab for it, but it's out of your reach. But, almost by magic, the parachute comes towards you and fall into your arms. You clutch it tightly while you strap it on, and activate it.

Below you, entering into your view is the ground, but not the ground of the planet you dwell on. It's mostly grey from your point of view, but as you descend a little further, you come to realise that the ground is not a singular colour, but multiiple contrasting colours swirling around forming psycedelic patterns. There are no trees, no vegetation for that matter. It's just a plain, hard surface.

You land softly, and as soon has your feet touch the ground, the life appears almost from thin air. Invisible tents, stands and other crazy structures pop up revealing what looks to be a busy carnival. Flashy lights and billboards blend in with the rest of the surroundings, making no difference whatsoever to the whole complexity of the place. To add onto all of the light pollution, deafening shrill noises pierce your ears and makes a continuous rining sound.

Recognizable people pop up here and there in the amassed crowd. You watch Mr. Monopoly buy yellow cotton candy from your 3rd-grade teacher, and the guy from Uber Eats who delivered your pizza yesterday is giving away free tickets to smell a square crayon. You pass by a sign that reads, VISIT HAWAII. It seems to you like it's a dimented reality.

Although you don't remeber it, You look down to see your hand clutching the same suitcase from before, with the same engraving. You feel like you've seen the engraved suitcase before, but you aren't completely sure. With your conscienceness slowly returning to you, everything feels more alive to you.

The wispy voice in your head returns, and the ringing in your ears stop. "Find Jacob," It says, "He will help you leave this place." At this point, you have no reason to leave, but you also have no reason to be here either, so you decide to go. You take your first steps, and then realise you don't know any Jacobs. You start becoming confused. "Who is Jacob?" You ask the voice, hoping for an answer. "Find the boy in the little red shirt," it replies. Silencing the doubt in your mind, the journey begins.

With the ringing out of your ear, you find everything nice and quiet again. The only noise is the chatter of nearby large groups and the occasional thump from drunk people falling to the floor. Nevertheless, you take advantage of the time to shout out for this mysterious Jacob kid.

You shout out, "JAAAAACOOOOBB," and immediately everyone goes quiet. They all turn towards you with a look of confusion. Once again you call out, except in a quiter manner. "Jacob, where are you?" Then the crowd starts to part, revealing a kid, probably around ten, bald, and in a red tee-shirt. And in a calm voice, he calls out to you, "I am here." A grin stretches across his face and yells out to you, "COME AND GET ME!"

After he says that, he starts running away. Wanting to know where he was going, you chase after him. With you being in your mid-twenties and him being ten, you are easily surprised to find out he's almost faster than you. After about ten or so minutes, you finally catch up to him, the both of you out of breath.

The boy looks up to you with a childish smile. The smile is familiar. You know you have seen it from somewhere, but you're not exactly sure. Out of nowhere, the ringing noise starts up again. With it, an amass of curiosity finally collapses the damn of silencing all thoughts of doubt and floods your brain with questions. All at once, you ask the voice in your head, Why am I here? What is my purpose here? Why do I recognise these things but cannot put my finger on what they really are? Why is this place so random?

"Maybe I can explain," says the voice. But this time, the voice is not in your head, but coming from someone near you. The ringing seems to be louder now. The voice repeats, "I'm over here." You look over your shoulder to see a man in a dark cloak. He did not have any headwear, revealing a middle-aged white man in glasses. You also observed his right ear was missing. He peacefully smiles at you.

Once more you ask him, "Why am I here?"

"I do not know."

"Then what was the point in brining me here?"

"There was no point."

"What does that even mean?"

The man in the cloak smiles at you. "This is a place beyond meaning." You think back to the sign above the station. You also come to realise the ringing is much louder and it getting quite irritating. "Not even I know why you are here. Everything here exists and works under no order. All that you see and did see around you were things that you gave life to. I only exist if you believe I exist."

Whilst trying to figure out what that meant, you ask another question. "Who even are you?" As soon as you made that statement, the noise became increasingly louder. You drop the suitcase and cover your ears once ore to stop the pain.

One last time, I say to you, "Maybe next time."

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You wake up to the buzz of the alarm clock. You turn off the alarm, and slowly roll over to see the time. 7:12 a.m. Then you remember, You were supposed to be up 20 MINUTES AGO!!!! Frantically, you hop out of bed, skipping out on a shower, you get dressed, go downstairs, get some breakfast in, and bolt to the door to try to make your flight. On the way out, you grab your coat, and a leather suitcase you packed the night before which has the letter "J" messily engraved on the side of it.

You think back to remember Jacob, your younger brother who passed away when he was 10. Jacob had wanted to travel the world, but was cut short due to leukimia. He gave you the suitcase along with his favourite red shirt as a reminder of him. You swore that you travel the world in his name one day. That day had finally come.

You know the reason why you have the case, buy you feel like you have seen it somewhere else, along with a bunch of other things. Shaking it off, you forget about it, and start your journey around the world. First stop: Hawaii.